Rahul Gandhi questions India's progress on COVID-19 vaccine, says other countries have started vaccinating

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not deploying coronavirus vaccines in the country despite other countries like the US and the UK beginning their respective vaccination drives.

"23 lakh people in the world have already received COVID vaccinations. China, US, UK, Russia have started. India ka number kab ayegaa, Modi ji? (When will India's number come?)," he tweeted.

Earlier, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has said that regulators are examining the permission sought by the Indian arm of US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer for emergency authorisation of its COVID-19 vaccine.

"I have heard that they have applied for emergency use permission from our regulators. According to my information, our regulators are examining it. If a politician speaks on the matter which is in the jurisdiction of experts, it will not be appropriate...perhaps they did not take part in the meeting," he had said.

The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) of Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) had earlier this month asked for more safety and efficacy data from Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech for their COVID-19 vaccines.

The meeting was held to review the application submitted by the pharma majors for emergency use authorisation (EUA) for their vaccine candidates.

With 23,950 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours, the country's coronavirus count reached 1,00,99,066 including 2,89,240 active cases.